Starting Up

(Missouri)

Can you continuously put money into your business account from your personal account to fund your business like to purchase equipment and pay for utilities until you start receiving a profit from it? Would that be perceived as commingling?

Answer

Yes, you can fund your business with personal funds (in fact, every business has to).

The key here is to understand that "you" and the LLC are legally separate individuals.

Which means that if you are giving money to your LLC, you need to be getting something in return -- either you are making a capital contribution to the LLC or you are loaning it money.

You wouldn't give money to some random corporation unless you got either stock or a bond in return--the same principle applies here.

The key is to create the proper paper trail, in particular, through the use of promissory notes.

There are many forms of promissory notes you can download for free on the internet, and some you can pay for.

Legalzoom has promissory note forms for around fifteen bucks.